


One Summer In Wales

by 0hHeyThereBigBadWolf



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: A.K.A. The Evolution of Scruffy!Arthur, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Developing Relationship, Do Not Re-Post To Another Site, Dragons, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Prequel, Tags Are Hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23982313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf/pseuds/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf
Summary: Arthur's summer in Wales is a series of firsts.
Relationships: Gwen/Lancelot (Merlin), Leon/Mithian (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 117
Collections: Scruffy Pendragon Fest





	1. Meeting (Again)

"For the love of all that is good and holy, please tell me why we're going to a fucking sorcerer's shop when we could be going to a concert? Do you know how many single people are at these music festivals? Lovely, lonely, _drunk_ single people?"

"For the love of all that's good and holy, will you _shut up,_ Gwaine?" Arthur replies, turning around and walking backwards a few steps to glare at the whinging _git_ who has somehow been his mate since primary. "Do _you_ know what it took for me talk my dad into letting me stay here all summer? I just want to go take a look, yeah? You'll have plenty of time to scrape the bottom of the kegs."

Gwaine presses a hand to his chest, affecting a deeply injured expression; with his floppy hair and big dark eyes, he could almost manage the kicked-puppy look. If not for the irrepressible quirk at the corner of his mouth. "I am _wounded_ by your crass assumptions, Pendragon. And yet I applaud you as well. Getting away from the old dragon himself. You'll be my one call the next time I'm arrested, you silver-tongued devil, you."

"There shouldn't _be_ a next time, ASBO," comes Mithian's dry voice; she looks almost comically small walking tucked under Leon's arm as she is. Turning her gaze to Arthur, she tilts her chin forward. "It's just up the street here, 'round the corner." Lurching forward, she hooks a finger in the back of his hood and tugs. "Still a good question, though. Why _are_ you so interested now?"

Arthur shrugs as they round the corner. "Dunno. Father's ragged on Ouroboros for years. Suppose I'm curious. I've never actually met a sorcerer, you know." The only sorcerers he's ever met have been sorcerers only in the very loosest sense of the term, ones that more studied magic than practiced it and spoke of it in terms of hypotheticals and theory, called themselves thaumaturgists or practitioners. He wants to see something _real,_ and what better place to start than with the magical organisation that's been his father's favourite bone of contention for years?

He spies the shop sign before Mithian even points it out— _CroWares_ , worked in iron above the likeness of a tree full of birds, presumably crows. There's some kind of flower painted on the shop's door, surrounded by the ouroboros, but when he goes to pull the handle, the door only rattles. Locked. "Well, that sodding figures," Arthur grumbles, stepping back.

"Well, more's the pity. Can we go now?" Gwaine asks.

Arthur casts a glance around the street. There's plenty of other shops to look at, he supposes. "Ah, you lot go on, I'll catch you up later."

"You certain?" Leon asks, his arm settling more securely around Mithian's shoulders. Sorcerers make him a little skittish. Maybe not outright _afraid,_ bit certainly a bit twitchy.

"Yeah, go on. I'll manage on my own a few hours."

Gwaine claps him on the back. "Your loss," he says cheerfully, then almost skips to the kerb to wave down a cab.

Once they've left, Arthur steps forward to peer through the front windows. The shop doesn't _look_ closed—he can see lights on and good Lord, is that a _dragon_ sleeping on the floor there?

"We're closed."

Arthur backpedals from the door and cranes his head back. On the balcony above the shop sign, a young man is slouched over the rail and peering down at him, the source of the voice. "Odd time to be closed. It's just gone one," he calls up, one hand shading his eyes.

"I wanted lunch. Just a tick, I'll come down." He vanishes back over the rail. A door opens, then shuts. A few moments later, the young man appears from the back of the shop, unhooking a set of keys from the belt loop of his jeans, rattling open the door. When he pushes open the door, though, he stops with one tattooed arm braced across the doorway, staring. "Arthur _fucking_ Pendragon."

Arthur stares at the sorcerer—he must be one, working for Ouroboros, marked up as he is. "Do I know you?"

He doesn't _look_ familiar, not really. Not that he's hard to look at, though. Tall and pale, all sharp bones and lean muscle, shaggy black curls falling over into dark blue eyes. Tattoos curl around his upper arms down to the elbow, running up over his shoulders and under his top, ribbons of intricate filigree interspersed with letter-like runes. It's surprisingly pretty, compared to the rest of his arms; his forearms and hands are covered in so many scars they almost look fake, like Halloween gloves.

"You don't remember me?" The sorcerer cocks his head with a grin, curls flopping over his brow. "Clotpole."

The bucket of pennies drops. Only one person has ever called him that stupid nonsense name in his entire _life._ "Merlin _fucking_ Ambrose, you Irish bastard!" he exclaims. "Christ, I've not seen you since, what was it?"

"Fifth year. You made that charming little rhyme about me," he says, folding his arms over his chest, then goes on in a singsong voice, _"Poor little Merlin, he looks so funny."_

_"He's got ears just like Bugs Bunny,"_ Arthur finishes. There's more to it, but now he can't recall the rest. He folds his arms; Merlin certainly isn't near so little anymore, and he has to look _up_ a bit to meet his eyes. "You didn't even stay to end of term. Did I run you off?"

Merlin snorts, stepping back from the doorway. "Hardly. We went to Austria. So, what are you doing in Denbighshire? Run out of puppies to kick in London?"

"Funny." Arthur steps into the shop, casting a curious glance around. "So, what, it's not enough for your family to run a national organisation, you've got your own shop, too?"

Merlin snorts as he slouches back against the counter, thumbs hooked through his belt loops. "Still a prat, I see. It's not mine, I'm just watching it a few days. Favour to a friend. And Ouroboros is international. Who were your mates? Fellow members of the Ale and Quail club, here to mingle with the lowly masses?"

"Still a classist twat, I see."

Merlin flashes teeth. "Only sometimes. Anyways, you didn't answer. What are you doing in Wales?"

Arthur leans a shoulder against a nearby shelf, mindful of the numerous glass bottles it holds. He can't imagine what they all hold, but he can imagine that they probably aren't meant to be mixed. "I've got the summer to myself," he answers, shrugging his other shoulder. "I'm expanding my horizons."

That earns him a curiously tilted head and a faint smile; it puts a little dimple in the corner of his mouth. "Expanding them my way?" he asks.

An unfamiliar prickle of excitement runs up his back, and he finds himself grinning back. "Might do."

"Well, then. Allow me to get you started."


	2. Handling Dragons

"Holy _shite,"_ Arthur exclaims, leaning forward in his seat to stare out the windscreen at the Calegue Animal Sanctuary. "Is that all one building?"

"Yep, that's the barn."

He whistles through his teeth, genuinely impressed. He wouldn't call it a _barn,_ more like an aircraft hangar. Then again, there's a few species of dragons that are larger than most aircraft. He's never seen the sanctuary in person before, only photos in magazines or on the telly, which is why he accepted Merlin's offer to visit and have a look around. The past three weeks have been surprisingly pleasant, and he's inwardly amazed at how much of Ouroboros makes sense to him. And how easily he and Merlin have somehow become friends again, or rather, friends for the first time. He wouldn't have called their brief childhood acquaintance a friendship.

"Is everyone here an employee or do you have volunteers?" Arthur asks, gripping the door handle as the Hilux jolts over a deep rut in the snaking road that leads from St Asaph into the Vale.

"We do volunteer work in the city. Out here, you've got to have training." Merlin casts him an amused glance. _"You_ get a hall pass." He turns the Hilux into the broad stretch of gravel in front of the barn and kills the engine. As they climb out of the truck, there's a stir of motion from the direction of the enormous barn; Arthur watches with some amusement as a minor dragon, dull orange and striped in black, comes out of the open rolling doors towards them. It runs oddly, sort of a strange hop-skip, fluttering its wings for balance, and when it gets nearer, he can see why—its left forelimb is maimed, tucked up close to its breast.

"Hey, mate," Merlin greets, crouching on his heels as the dog-sized dragon bounds over to him. It butts its head against his thighs in greeting, wriggling all over in glee, making little sneezing noises. "Arthur, this is Metre, the Calegue mascot."

He stares. "You named it _Metre?"_

"He's got three feet and a little extra."

"Oh, Christ," he snorts, then crouches on his heels and proffers a hand to the minor dragon, which sniffs his fingers before tucking its snout under his palm for pets. "What happened to him?" Arthur asks, raising his brows at Metre's mangled foreleg. Up close he can see that what's left of the limb is marred in a pattern, distorted by the scarring but still clearly uniform.

"Poacher's trap. It was probably for something else, but he got his leg caught in it. Tore himself up bad." Merlin runs a hand down the striped flank. "We had to amputate up to the elbow. He's one of our permanents now."

"One of the ones you can't release to the wild?" Arthur assumes, and Merlin nods. Makes sense. He can't imagine that any maimed animal would do well in the wild, even a dragon. Even if Metre could hunt, surely some bigger, meaner beast would come along and snap him up as an easy meal. "Do you have a lot of those?"

"Forty-two so far, and that's only here." Merlin gently nudges Metre off his lap and stands up, Arthur following suit, and they start in the direction of the barn; the little stripy dragon bounds ahead of them in his peculiar little hop-skips. "Worldwide, there's eleven sanctuaries that are properly equipped to handle dragons, and only four that can handle both the lesser and greater species."

Arthur whistles through his teeth as they walk through the vast rolling doors. Metre stays close to his feet, sometimes hopping up to trot next to Merlin for a moment before returning to him. It really is more like an aircraft hangar, so big there's an echo, with large sections of it closed off, each one separate from the next; from the noises coming from them, he imagines they're separate stalls for the dragons. The smaller ones are at the end nearest to them, growing larger down the length of the barn. The barn smells like animal musk and clean hay and brimstone, a little strange but overall pleasant scent.

Midway down the length of the barn, Merlin stops beside a wide, cluttered worktop covered with water bottles, papers, and various pieces of equipment he can't recognise and starts shuffling through the mess, occasionally grumbling in another language.

"So, where's your dad? Doesn't he usually run this place?" Arthur asks, leaning back against the worktop.

"Chile."

"Chile," he repeats flatly, staring at him. "As in…South America?"

Merlin smiles and nods. "Yeah, Chile as in South America. Ah!" He makes a victorious sound as he snatches a piece of paper from the worktop and promptly shoves it in his pocket.

"Why?"

_"Draconis minima valdivius._ Chilean pygmy dragon. Smallest extant species in the world. Dad's tracking their migratory patterns and trying to talk with the conservation organizations there to have their nesting grounds protected by the native forest law." He gives Arthur a tiny sideways smile. "You want to see one?" he asks.

Arthur looks up from swinging one foot back and forth, Metre snapping after his shoelaces playfully. "Can I? You have one here?"

"Yeah, c'mon." He continues walking through the barn, talking over his shoulder. "There's been a few smuggled here, exotic pets, but they're not meant to live here. They're native to a temperate rainforest."

He chuckles as he follows the younger man. "Not exactly bred for English weather."

"We're trying to see if we can sell them to the London zoo, and if not, we're gonna send them back to Chile." The very back of the barn is set up with normal, human-sized rooms, most of which look like exploded supply cupboards. When Merlin opens one door, an unexpected wall of warm, humid air spills out to meet them. Inside, the room is full of potted plants, dozens of them, along with several humidifiers; spell runes are carved in each corner, probably to keep the room so warm. It's a makeshift rainforest room. All in all, rather ingenious.

Merlin walks over and sticks his head into a cluster of enormous ferns, one long arm reaching through the fronds and quietly whistling. After a moment, he straightens up again, hand cupped close to his chest when he turns back to Arthur.

Arthur stares. Merlin had said they were the smallest species, but he hadn't really expected it to be so… _tiny._ It's barely the size of a newborn kitten, easily able to fit in the palm of the sorcerer's hand, all rosy pink in colour with dappled golden-yellow marks. It blinks incongruously large black eyes at him, letting out a small warbling kettle-whistle. He extends his hand palm-up, aware he's grinning like an idiot; it sniffs at him curiously, then crawls onto his palm, claws pressing into his skin. Its scales are so small and its hide so thin that it feels more like warm suede than scale, bones like delicate toothpicks when he strokes a fingertip over its flank. "What do they eat? Bugs?" he wonders; he can't imagine there's anything else small enough for them to hunt.

"Mm-hm. Nectar, too. We've been letting them have sugar water." His watch beeps twice, and Merlin grins. "Speaking of, _that_ means it's feeding time. Wanna give me a hand?"

"Sure."

"Wicked. Wait here, back in a tick."

Arthur lowers himself to sit cross-legged on the floor; the pygmy dragon starts scaling his arm, tiny claws pricking him through his shirt, tail curving around his wrist to help it keep hold. Merlin leaves the room, but he's back in only a few minutes, shutting the door and sitting down on the ground next to Arthur, handing him a plastic medicine dropper, like something a vet would use on small animals. "Sugar water. We give them ants and crickets later," Merlin explains. "See the red marks? That's how much each one gets. I'll get the others."

Tiny though its brain must be, the pygmy dragon has to recognise its lunch because it immediately reverses direction, climbing down his arm at speed to clutch at his hand, snaking its neck around to bite the end of the dropper. Arthur laughs, gently prying it off his wrist, holding its small body in his free hand. He pushes the plunger down slowly towards the first red tick on the side, laughing as the dragon laps up the sugar water, trying to bite the plastic when it doesn't come out fast enough.

"They like you." Merlin sits down beside him, another three pygmy dragons climbing on him like he's their new tree. They're all the same rosy colour, only their gold patterns differing.

"I like them. Also, I always thought you weren't supposed to handfeed wild animals like this," Arthur remarks, carefully prying the pygmy dragon's grasping feet from his watchband and setting it on Merlin's knee.

"You can with dragons. Magical animals are different, for the most part. They're intelligent. Not like we are, but they're smart. Once we let them back into the wild, in their own habitat, they'll readjust," Merlin explains, handing over another of the tiny dragons for its feeding. One of them twists its neck around and closes its jaws around the side of Merlin's thumb. The sorcerer only makes a disapproving noise and hooks his little fingertip into the side of its mouth, prying its jaw open. "You are _literally_ biting the hand that feeds you, cheeky bastard," he scolds. The tiny ring of fang-marks on his thumb bleeds sluggishly, but he doesn't give it much mind, wiping the blood off on his jeans. Suddenly, Arthur has an idea as to why his hands and arms are so thickly scarred.

They continue the rotation until all four of the pygmy dragons have been fed their share. Once fed, they seem perfectly content to simply crawl all over Merlin and Arthur alike, investigating their clothes and hair. Arthur laughs softly as a tiny snout pokes itself into his ear, snuffling loudly before retreating. He leans back on his hands, stretching his legs out in front of him. "Thanks for letting me come out here, Merlin. Showing me all this and telling me this stuff," he says softly, watching one of the dragons descend his leg to perch on the toe of his trainer, preening like it'd scaled Everest.

"Thank you, too," the sorcerer replies.

"For what?"

"For asking." Merlin smiles back at him, unexpectedly bright, and it makes something unfamiliar yet warm unfurl in the pit of Arthur's belly, heat prickling over his skin that had nothing to do with the humidity in the room.


	3. Riding a Motorcycle

"Oh, fuck _me,"_ Arthur sighs heavily as he steps out of the sanctuary, running both hands back through his hair, sweeping it back out of his face.

He had come out to Calegue with Merlin in the sanctuary Hilux, but Merlin's mum had taken it, and he'd meant to get a ride back with Gwen and Lance. Except he had entirely forgotten to ask in the general chaos of the day—one of the new arrivals, a minor dragon, had broken out of its enclosure and made a personal goal to wreck as much as possible—and now they've both gone home. Which means he's here on his own. Arthur thinks about the long, snaking road from the sanctuary to St Asaph and sighs. Good thing he has his exercise trainers on.

"Been marooned?" Merlin asks, tweaking his hair as he walks outside, shrugging on his bulky jacket; Arthur purses his lips and nods, feeling not a little foolish. "Come on. I'll give you a lift."

"I thought your mum took the Hilux."

"She did, but I've got my own ride. I keep it just 'round here."

"Cheers, mate." Relieved that he'll not need to buy new trainers after that hell-walk, Arthur follows the sorcerer around the corner, walking down the side of the enormous building. There's dozens of assorted materials stacked up haphazardly against the side—heavy wood posts, rolls of reinforced fencing, shovels, rakes, post-holers, empty cages, supply crates, all the odds-and-ends the sanctuary uses—and Merlin has his 'ride' hidden further back behind the clutter. Arthur stops in his tracks.

When he notices that Arthur is no longer at his side, Merlin turns to look at him. "What?"

 _"That's_ what you ride?"

"Ye-es?" He draws the word out in confusion as he takes his helmet off the motorcycle's handlebar, tucking it under an arm. "Why? What did you think I got around on, a broomstick? That went out in the 1800s, you know."

Arthur isn't certain _what_ he thought before now, but it certainly hadn't been a road hog. A pedal bike, sure. A scooter, maybe. A motorcycle? Nope. "I've never ridden one of these before." He'd thought about it, as all adolescent boys do, but he probably hadn't given it any serious level of thought since he was twelve.

"Ah. Well, here." Merlin shrugs off his jacket and tosses it at him.

Catching it on reflex, Arthur stares at the jacket for a moment before he slings it around his shoulders, sliding his arms through. Merlin's jacket is a big, heavy thing with bony plates sewn into the lining of it and patches all over the front and sleeves. He doesn't know what it's made of—some kind of mix of nylon-like synthetic, canvas, leather, and dragonhide, presumably. It smells like him, too, faint incense and woodsmoke and something else musky and vaguely reptilian he associates with _dragon._

"Here, put this on, too." He holds out the helmet. The _only_ helmet.

"You're not going to wear a helmet?" Arthur's voice hikes up a bit higher than he would've liked, but seriously, is he taking the mick?

Merlin laughs a little. "I don't wear one all the time. And if I wear it, that means you won't. C'mon, I'll be fine for one little ride."

He glares at the sorcerer for a moment longer, torn between wanting to tell him put the damn helmet on and wanting to wear as much protection as possible. Finally, he snatches the stupid helmet. "Fine."

"Alright. Now, before you get on, let me give you a rundown on riding double. It's not like a pedal bike, and it's not like the films where you just hop on and go riding off into the sunset," Merlin tells him, then proceeds to explain where Arthur can put his hands, what is hot, how he should lean into the turns, and so on. "So, you think you got it?"

"Yeah, think so. How Not To Die On A Speeding Death Machine, 101. Just one question, though." Arthur points at the detailing on the side of the motorcycle's sleek black tank: a coiled white dragon belching out blue flames. "Is that Aithusa?" he asks, referring to the infant albino king dragon Merlin is raising.

"Yes, it is."

He snorts. "You're a fucking dork."

Merlin rolls his eyes so hard it's a miracle he doesn't hurt himself. "Whatever. Come on." He slings a leg over and puts up the kickstand, taking the weight of the bike.

Arthur hesitates only a moment longer before he gets on, settling onto the seat behind Merlin.

He glances down and snorts, swatting at his leg. "Move your feet, Pendragon."

"What? What's wrong with this?"

"Because that is the exhaust pipe. It will melt your trainers and fuck up my chrome."

"Oh." He shifts his legs, moving his feet.

When the sorcerer gives him a backwards glance, he gives a thumbs-up. Smiling, Merlin lifts up and brings his foot down on the starter; the motorcycle comes to life in a roar of sound and vibration. He can't help but give a yelp, thankfully muffled by the helmet, and he tightens his grip on Merlin's waist. Merlin lowers a hand to pat his knee once, turns the front wheel to the road, and lets off the brake, and then they're off, gliding into motion.

For an admittedly embarrassing long time, all he can do is clutch to Merlin white-knuckle tight, trying not to tip them over as he leans them into the curves of the road, eating up the distance between the sanctuary and town.

Once they finally reach the main road and drive straight, he finally realises that perhaps compressing the driver to death whilst doing 120 isn't a good idea. He can't quite make himself let go, but he does at least loosen his grip a little so he's not squeezing quite so hard, putting an inch of space between them. Just an inch. He feels rather than hears Merlin chuckle, and the sorcerer takes one hand from the handlebars to pat Arthur's hands, still knotted together over his stomach.

Suddenly he's quite grateful for the helmet, hiding the flush that scalds up his neck to his cheeks and ears.


	4. Getting Tased

"That's so fucking cool," Arthur says as he walks up the steps of Merlin's townhouse, magic tingling warm and feathery over his skin when he passes the wards.

To anyone else, the building would look derelict, smashed windows covered with plywood and plastic sheeting, bricks cracked and crumbling, walls tagged with spray-painted vulgarities. Except it isn't. The whole thing is bound up in a glamour, and underneath, it looks like one of those houses that ends up in a magazine with the extra-shiny pages. Arthur had wanted to talk to Merlin about Ouroboros and Pen Y Draig finding some kind of common ground, if such a thing was possible, and the sorcerer had invited him over to talk about it, then apparently cast a charm over him that would let him see though the glamour and pass the wards.

And it is the coolest goddamn thing he's ever seen.

The door isn't locked—who needs a deadbolt when there's magic wards?—and he very firmly clamps down on the curious urge to look around, see how the other half lives, instead going directly up the stairs to the second floor to the kitchen, like Merlin said.

There's an open floor plan, so the kitchen is also the dining room and the living room, and it's all this strange conglomerate of styles. Potted plants grow on just about every surface large enough to hold a planter. The furniture looks like it'd been dug out the back of someone's garage. The countertops are polished granite. Two hobs, one gas and one electric. A bookshelf reaching from floor to ceiling is full of film cases. An enormous aquarium holds three pygmy sharks swimming happily around a bubbler; the bottom isn't lined with gravel or sand, but Scrabble tiles, only five letters—S, H, A, R, K. Twelve points.

"Wicked," Arthur laughs.

There's a rustle of cloth, then a dark-curled head pops up over the back of the sofa. It isn't Merlin, though he looks somewhat alike him. His pale blue eyes widen, and before Arthur can even open his mouth to say hello, the kid vaults over the back of the sofa and rushes him like a damn rugby player. A hand grabs his arm. White sparks explode in his skull, and then there's nothing for what feels like an eternity.

When he comes back around, the first thing he's aware of is that he's lying on the sofa, there's a broken spring digging into the back of his thigh, and a rough hand is petting his hair like Mother used to when he was sick.

"…fuck's sake, you could've at least _asked_ him who he was first…"

"…built like a fucking brick shit-house! I thought those Pen Y Draig bastards…"

"Every inch of this place is warded, idiot! May the Mother grant me patience, I am going to cut your fucking hands off one of these days."

"Hey, it's not _my_ fault you didn't tell me about your stupid boyfriend before you decided to invite him over! You _know_ I don't like strangers in our house!"

"He's not my boyfriend, you little twat! And it's _my_ house!"

Arthur tries to swallow, his tongue feeling thick and heavy in his mouth. "Ow."

The hand in his hair stills, and there's a faint creak of leather. "Arthur? Can you hear me?" Merlin's voice, concerned.

He smacks his lips a few times, mouth unpleasantly dry, and slowly opens one eye to see Merlin leaning over him, still in his motorcycle jacket, hair wind-blown. And lurking at his elbow like a shifty little shadow is the kid who'd jumped at him. "The fuck?"

Merlin lets out a sigh, rolling his eyes skyward as if praying for divine intervention. "Arthur, this is Mordred."

He blinks. "Your kid brother?" Side-by-side, it's hard to mistake them for much else, but still, what the fuck?

"I'm not a _kid,"_ the boy hisses immediately.

"Shut _up,_ or I'm calling Mum!" He turns his attention back to Arthur. "You all right?"

No, not really. There's a throbbing sore spot on his elbow and the back of his head, there's a spot on his other arm that burns like an absolute _whore,_ and he feels just kind of achy all over, like he's pulled his entire body. "What'd he do to me?"

"Mordred has an affinity for fire. He can, ah, conjure lightning."

"He…Tased me?" Arthur says slowly. "Tased me…with magic?"

"Only a little!" Mordred protests, still sulking at his brother's side. "I didn't even stop his heart this time!"

_Stop my heart? Oh, Christ._ Arthur sits up slowly, grasping the back of the sofa for leverage, and looks at his arm. There's a mark on his arm where the kid had grabbed him, bright red and tender, like sunburn from hell, and he realises it's an electrical burn. A goddamn electrical burn. From being Tased by a paranoid teenager. "Your family is fucking mad, you know that?" he says, staring at Merlin.

"Yeah, I know."

He tries to swallow again and coughs. "Can I have some water?"

Merlin casts a pointed look at Mordred, who scowls right back but stomps towards the kitchen. "I'm sorry, I forgot he was supposed to be here today," Merlin apologises in a lower voice. "If you don't want to stay, it's fine, I'll give you a tenner for a cab."

Arthur gingerly rubs the stinging skin of his arm. "I'm fine, really. And I think I can afford my own cab fare."

Merlin rolls his eyes. "Clotpole. Do you want some ice for your head? Mordred said you cracked yourself pretty good on the way down."

He takes the glass Mordred hands him with a muttered thanks, downing half of it in one go. Oh, sweet relief. "You aren't going to…?" He wriggles his fingers. He knows that it's against sorcerer's etiquette to just up and ask, but Merlin always offers, healing Gwen or Lance's minor injuries without pause and joking that he's faster than paracetamol.

Merlin blinks at him a few times, then looks down at his hands. "I, uh, I didn't know if you'd want me to," he murmurs.

"I don't mind," Arthur replies softly.

Merlin gives a faint smile, then reaches towards him, gently sliding his hand around to rest feather-light against the sore spot on his head. "Hells, you really did hit your head, huh?"

"Well, according to my mother, I have an exceptionally hard head, so I should be fine."

"I can believe that." Merlin's eyes flicker gold behind his dark lashes, and a blessed coolness spreads through Arthur's scalp from where his fingers rest, coaxing away the throbbing ache until it's as good as gone. "There."

"Cheers, mate."

Merlin drops his hand and moves to sit up on the arm of the sofa. "You've been out of it for a while, it's a bit late. You, uhm…you wanna stay for dinner?"

Arthur decides to blame the jumping of his heartbeat on the electrical shock he'd been given. "Sounds alright to me."

He also decides to ignore the way that Mordred is looking between them with eyes narrowed with playful suspicion, lips curling up at the corners.


End file.
